


Decorative Arts

by AliceInKinkland



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Collars, Dubious Consent, Humiliation, Loki's got this (he don't got this), M/M, Multi, Orgy, Piercings, Possessive Behavior, Sakaar Trash Party, Self-Esteem Issues, Shame, because that's a kink I have apparently, can I use that tag? because that is a v accurate description of this whole mess, dubiously consensual body modification, initiation ritual, slow erosion of boundaries and bodily autonomy, unhealthy attitudes towards sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 16:26:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceInKinkland/pseuds/AliceInKinkland
Summary: “You know that feeling, when you walk into a room, and you can feel everyone’s eyes on you? I bet you do, you’re very striking. I want—when that happens next, I want everyone looking at you to know that you’re mine.”Or: the problem of showcasing possession, solved a few different ways.





	Decorative Arts

**Author's Note:**

> Petition to make “back on my bullship”—a phrase which here means “I just created another fanwork for my trash pairing”—a thing, as in: “I have other serious fic and original writing that I want to be doing but instead I’ve written another 8k of Frostmaster dubcon, guess I’m back on my bullship.”
> 
> Someone more popular than I am on this here internet, please make this a thing.

It’s just his body.

That’s what Loki tells himself when, within the first hour of meeting him, the Grandmaster takes him to a large and sumptuously decorated private room, beckons him into the bed, and sticks his hand down Loki’s pants. It isn’t quite how Loki expected his evening to go, but there are worse ways to get ahead on a strange planet, not to mention worse ways to distract himself from the ever-looming knowledge that Thor and Asgard are no doubt lost to him forever.

All in all, it’s a reasonably pleasant way to spend the evening, even when the Grandmaster pushes into him without quite enough of a warmup, or when he leaves Loki, afterwards, face burning where it is pressed into the pillow, remembering how loudly and genuinely he moaned as the Grandmaster bit and sucked at his neck. Loki will please this strange immortal being, and inveigle his way into his inner circle, and one day, when the Grandmaster slips, Loki will be there, and Loki will be ready.

And in the meantime, it’s just his body.

* * *

The next day, the Grandmaster summons him to another garishly decorated room, seven floors higher up the Grandmaster’s tower, and tells him to strip. No preamble, no nod to any kind of seduction, and Loki tries to twist genuine offence into mock offence on his face.

He removes his clothes just slowly enough to inject some showmanship into the gestures without boring the being before him, but the Grandmaster’s expression is difficult to read, otherworldly in some way Loki can’t quite name. Is he pleased? He seems distracted by something outside the window, but when Loki turns to look he sees nothing stranger than usual, just the vast filthy sprawl of the capital city below them, and off in the distance the portals, disgorging the universe’s lost and broken scraps onto the planet’s surface.

It’s no wonder Loki fits in.

“Grandmaster?” says Loki once he stands naked, and is pleased to hear that his voice sounds confident, steady. He places a hand on his hip, thinks of pleasing angles and not the fact that he ruled an entire realm up until just days ago. _Aren’t you better than this,_ asks a voice in his head anyway.

Well. A lot of people would find that debateable. And anyway, no matter. It’s just his body.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, come here, let’s see what you’re looking like today,” says the Grandmaster, and Loki does, walking right up to where the Grandmaster sits in an angular blue and purple throne. The Grandmaster grabs Loki’s hips, and Loki takes the hint, straddling his lap and trying to ignore his awareness of the various guards hovering about the room.

The Grandmaster brushes Loki’s hair back, exposing his neck, and frowns. “Loki, darling,” he says, fingernail running back and forth along the skin of Loki’s throat, “What happened to all those marks I gave you last night?”

Loki laughs, and smiles, and tries to ignore the prickle of unease in the back of his mind. “I’m afraid I heal rather quickly,” he says.

“No!” says the Grandmaster, looking disconcertingly distressed. “Really? All of them? What about…” he trails his hands down Loki’s side, pressing his thumbs into Loki’s hips in an approximation of where he had gripped him the previous night as he fucked him. Loki can still feel the ghosts of bruises under the Grandmaster’s touch, but any evidence has already faded from purple, to yellow, back to the near-white of Loki’s skin.

“I guess you’ll just have to give me some more,” says Loki, and winks.

The Grandmaster, however, just sighs. “Is there any way you could, I don’t know, just throwing out ideas here, but is there any way you could turn your whole fast-healing thing off?”

Unease settles deeper into Loki, trickling from the back of his neck down his spine. He swallows and shakes his head. “It’s my biology, it’s not...something I’m doing.” It’s not as though these are wounds he’s putting efforts into healing, just bruises fading about as quickly as they usually do for him.

“Ah, but you’re smart! You _are_ smart, right? I bet you could think of something. It’s just so discouraging—I mean really not a fun feeling—putting all that work into marking you up, only to find a few hours later it’s like I never even touched you.”

Loki smiles to avoid any other expression his face might fall into. “If you want to play a bit rougher, you need only ask,” he tries. It doesn’t seem like the right answer, but he isn’t sure there is one of those, short of agreeing to slow down a natural bodily process just because someone asked him too.

It might not be the smartest answer either, but as to that, it’s just his body.

The Grandmaster trails one thin finger up Loki’s front, starting at the line of hair running from Loki’s cock to his belly button and ending at Loki’s throat. He presses the finger under Loki’s chin, tilting his head upwards.

“Loki, darling, sweet thing, it’s not about hurting you!” He moves his hand to the back of Loki’s neck, not gripping, just holding it there steadily, warm against the cool of Loki’s skin. “It’s about—you know that feeling, when you walk into a room, and you can feel everyone’s eyes on you? I bet you do, you’re very striking. I want—when that happens next, I want everyone looking at you to know that you’re mine.”

“Ah,” Loki manages, blinking to clear his vision of all the various images the Grandmaster’s words are painting in his mind. He can feel his cock jerk slightly, beginning to grow hard, and he makes sure not to look down lest the Grandmaster follow his gaze. He feels a burst of shame at how much the Grandmaster’s sudden turn towards the possessive affects him. It is one thing, after all, to use his body to get ahead—another thing entirely to respond this way to being treated like a pet.

The Grandmaster does look down, however, even without Loki’s prompting, and when he returns his gaze to Loki, his eyebrows are raised and his expression is bright. “We’ll think of something, though, won’t we?” he says. “Hmm, yeah, I’ve got a few ideas already. And for now—well, maybe you’re right that we should just get a bit rougher. Since you, uh, since you suggested it.”

Loki meets the Grandmaster’s smile with his own. “Sounds delightful,” he says, and it’s the kind of lie that contains enough truth for him to almost believe it himself.

* * *

In his box at the arena, the Grandmaster presses a glass into Loki’s hand, long-stemmed and full to the brim with something that shivers purple-black like starlight. Loki takes it, smiling, and mimics a sip, disappearing the liquid before it can pass his lips.

“Hey,” says the Grandmaster, narrowing his eyes. “None of that.”

“I beg your pardon?” says Loki. His fingers tap the stem of the glass. Maybe he’ll paint his nails here; many people do. Or maybe he doesn’t want to give that part of himself to the Grandmaster.

“What you just did with the drink! Naughty.” The Grandmaster pokes his nose. “Let your guard down! Nothing to be afraid of here, and if you are a little nervous, well, this will chill you right out, let me tell you.” He laughs, and then his face turns serious and he pushes the base of the glass until Loki has no polite, no acceptable choice but to allow the rim to be guided back to his lips.

This is a warning: the Grandmaster expects many things of his consorts, and he sees through many more. This is a warning that Loki should run while he still can.

But really, where else would he go? Loki thinks of the blood of the arena below, of the endless sprawling city that always looks on the verge of collapse, and beyond that, the scavengers wading through pools of filthy water and sun-baked piles of refuse. Around him, exaggerated laughter mixes with the pounding music, glasses clinking. The Grandmaster’s glittering inner circle is really the only strategic place to be.

And it’s just his body, after all.

Loki swallows. The drink is sweet, but with a sour aftertaste, tart against his tongue.

The Grandmaster pulls Loki in for a kiss, and Loki tries to calculate the right amount to react—half of him wants to push the Grandmaster off him, while the other half wants to be touched like this always. The Grandmaster’s hands running up Loki’s sides are warm, too warm, and Loki’s head is beginning to spin.

* * *

“Loki!” the Grandmaster says a few days later. “Why are you holding out on me?”

“I’m not sure I follow,” says Loki, keeping his expression neutral.

“First the disappointing lack of bruises, and now you don’t put on the earrings I gave you,” says the Grandmaster, clicking his tongue.

So he’s still on about the marks thing. Loki almost feels guilty, flooded with a desire to beg, to placate. Ridiculous.

“My ears are not pierced, I’m afraid,” says Loki. “They were gorgeous earrings, though. Truly.”

The Grandmaster claps him on the back. “Oh!” he says, “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Let’s fix it right now, hmm?” He leads Loki, hand pressed against the small of his back, to the bed. “Sit!” he says, and walks to the other side of the room, opening and closing drawers seemingly at random until he returns with a box, its surface covered in a loud, multicoloured design.

Loki can guess what is in the box before The Grandmaster opens it, but he still startles momentarily when he sees the variety of needles inside, laid out neatly in order of thickness in little compartments. It reminds Loki of a sewing kit, and fills his mind with the absurd image of the Grandmaster mending him by the light of a roaring fire. Unfolding him and feeling with his fingers for the tears in the fabric of his body.

“Hey, don’t be nervous,” says the Grandmaster, and Loki curses himself for letting whatever expression he just felt show on his face. “Just hold still.”

The Grandmaster takes one of Loki’s earlobes between his thumb and forefinger and pokes it lightly with the needle, testing the placement. Loki breathes deeply, forcing himself not to consider possible symbolic meanings, to focus simply on the sensation; it’s just his body.

The feeling of the needle sliding through his earlobe is slightly less painful than he expected, Loki thinks at first. But when the Grandmaster pulls the needle out and slips an earring in—plainer than the ones he’d given Loki earlier, just small gold studs, more restrained than he’s thought the Grandmaster capable of being—Loki realizes it’s not so much that the pain is less, and more that the pain is different, heady, a kind of endorphin rush that threatens to send him zipping up and away as though through a portal. He shifts slightly on the bed and his head spins, tipsy off the sensation. Dangerous, he thinks, but all he does is stay still.

“Mmm, you like that? You do, I can tell,” the Grandmaster hums, and then he does the other ear, sudden and jarring and oh, Loki feels more aware of his skin than usual, the brush of the Grandmaster’s fingers against the side of his neck as he slides the other earring in, and Loki thinks, too giddy too fast, that this is a whole new kind of penetration.

“Look at you, look at all these—all these tiny hairs on the back of your neck, standing up like that,” says the Grandmaster. He brushes Loki’s hair to one side, and breathes, soft and warm. Loki shivers without meaning too. “Oh no, are you cold? I hope not, because if you ask me, you’re wearing a little too much right now.”

Loki obliges, undoes his buckles and straps, leather peeled from skin.

“You know,” says the Grandmaster, fingers running down Loki’s back, across his shoulders. “I had a totally different plan for you today, but you just—mmm, you’re having such a good time, aren’t you, I think we’d better keep this particular party going.” Palm on the back of Loki’s neck, firm now, and Loki lays across the bed, presses his face to the sheets so quickly he could almost believe it was his idea.

 _Is_ he having a good time? Loki can’t tell. His ears are throbbing now, slow and steady as a heartbeat. Loki wishes for more straightforward pleasure, or more straightforward pain. The Grandmaster flicks his earlobe with his finger and Loki bites the sheets beneath them.

The Grandmaster guides Loki’s arms to lie at his sides, palms up. He runs his fingers down them, shoulders to wrists. Loki licks at the fabric in his mouth, hating how much he wants to be touched, even by the Grandmaster’s power-throb fingertips, even as he shivers with something he will not allow to be fear.

The Grandmaster picks up a needle from the box, positions it about a quarter of the way down Loki’s left arm, and slides it in and back out again, forming what feels like a horizontal line. Loki breathes out as it slips into him, and the breath seems to send the sensation through his whole body, into his cock and his toes and behind his eyes.

“Gorgeous, gorgeous, you’re such a sublime creature,” says the Grandmaster, and in goes another needle, mirroring the placement of the first but on his right arm this time. “Gosh, to think of all the things that had to happen, the whole, uh, sequence of events that had to occur for you to end up here—I love my planet, don’t you? Sucking all these lost things right into my lap.” The Grandmaster laughs and slides in another needle.

“Am I one of your lost things?” says Loki, aiming for a tone of playful challenge but ending up somewhere raw and altogether too vulnerable. He gasps as the next needle goes in, grinding slightly against the bed.

“Of course, sweetness,” says the Grandmaster. Loki’s head is spinning. He almost wonders if he was slipped something, before this all began, but he’s pretty sure it’s simply the effect of the needles. Each one going in is a bit more painful than the last, his body feeling as though it’s vibrating as the pain builds slowly, steadily, up and down his arms. He wonders what the Grandmaster’s plan is, his grand design. Why his arms? When will he stop?

Loki is suddenly aware of the Grandmaster’s hardness pressing against him where the Grandmaster is straddling him. He’s lost count of the needles now, tries without success to count the points of sensation marching down each of his arms like steps of a ladder.

With the building pain comes a building restlessness, a dull pulsing awareness of all the foreign objects resting under his skin, an urge to twist away and pull them out that he soothes with the pain and the pleasure both. The Grandmaster babbles on above him, and Loki murmurs agreement, closing his eyes against the midday glare dulled slightly by the gold and red curtains hung across the windows of the room.

The Grandmaster stops when he reaches Loki’s wrists, and then he pauses, admiring his handiwork. The lack of touch makes Loki’s restlessness grow, and he can’t help but shift on the bed under the Grandmaster’s gaze, wishing his palms were pressed into the sheets instead of away from them so he could grip and twist at the fabric.

Then the Grandmaster runs his fingers down Loki’s arms, over the needles, and Loki twitches before he can help himself, a kind of wriggling away that feels pathetic to him as he does it.

The Grandmaster laughs indulgently. “Easy there,” he says, and Loki hates himself for the way he settles at the calming words like a startled horse being soothed by its master. He has to pull himself together. His desire, his fear, isn’t supposed to be this solid, this honest.

“Breathe, that’s right,” says the Grandmaster, running his fingers over the piercings once more, harder this time. The pain skirts the edge of what Loki enjoys, dipping from one side to the other and back again, a knife-point balancing act, and he’s overtaken once again by the urge to claw the needles out of his skin. The Grandmaster pats his ass, then steps off the bed. “Don’t tell me this is too much already! We’ve only got through step one!”

What would happen, Loki wonders, if he said this _was_ too much? A fierce _no_ threatens to bubble up from within him. Perhaps he would simply lose the Grandmaster’s favour for good, be dismissed from his odd court and his chance at ascension for being unable to keep up. But Loki has the sinking suspicion that the Grandmaster would keep him—keep him and keep plowing past his defences as though Loki had not spoken at all.

Better to never say it, better to never confront what the Grandmaster’s reaction might be.

“Of course not,” Loki manages. The Grandmaster is walking to another drawer now in another part of the room, and Loki strains to see what he is getting now. When he turns around, however, all he holds in his hand is a single blue ribbon, which flutters behind him as he returns to the bed.

“Good, that’s, hmmm, very good,” says the Grandmaster, settling onto the bed. He trails the ends of the ribbon down Loki’s back. “I’m sure you get this all the time, but there’s just something so, so overwhelmingly submissive about you.”

“I wouldn’t say that, actually,” says Loki.

“No? Well, then let me be the first to tell you: it’s how you look best. On your knees, or on the bed like this, easy access—” here he guides Loki’s legs apart, brushing his thumb lightly against Loki’s asshole, and sure enough, Loki complies—“Just easy in general, really, hmm? No, don’t be embarrassed, it’s a delight! Or maybe be a bit embarrassed, it’s, uh, it’s a really good look on you.”

“That may be—that is to say, I _was_ a king before I got here—” Loki starts.

“And you must be so relieved, not to have all that pressure. OK, here’s what I’m thinking—clasp your hands behind you, that’s right, and bring your arms just a bit closer together, just—there.” The Grandmaster pushes Loki’s arms towards each other until the strain in his shoulders threatens to overpower the prickles of needle-pain. “Hold them like that, I’m just gonna add some decoration.”

 _Decoration_. Loki is suddenly aware of the throbbing in his earlobes again, and thinks of how this all started. Is this simply a method the Grandmaster is using to mark Loki as his own? Loki wishes, suddenly, that he were tied down, that he didn’t have to sit with the knowledge that he was allowing the Grandmaster to do this to him without even putting up a fight.

The Grandmaster hooks the ribbon around the exposed end of the uppermost needle on Loki’s left arm, then does the same with the right. The slide of soft silk against his skin adds to the confusing set of sensations engulfing Loki’s body, and Loki closes his eyes, concentrating on holding his arms behind him. The Grandmaster crosses the ribbon, and then hooks each end over the next needle. He keeps the ribbon taut, pulling just enough that Loki’s piercings burn and shift under his skin. Loki can picture the criss-cross pattern beginning to emerge. He’s glad to be lying on his belly, his hard cock pressed between him and the sheets so the Grandmaster can’t see.

“Gorgeous,” breathes the Grandmaster, and continues lacing Loki’s arms together, hooking the ribbon around one needle and then the next until he reaches the final two. Loki holds his arms in place even as his muscles protest. To let them fall slack would mean putting more weight on the piercings; he pictures skin ripping open and shudders. The Grandmaster ties the ribbon off in some kind of knot; it feels elaborate although Loki can’t deduce what it is by touch alone. Then, the Grandmaster pauses to admire his handiwork once more.

“Was that step two?” Loki ventures.

The Grandmaster laughs. “You got it! So smart, that’s another thing I like about you.”

“What’s step three?” says Loki.

The Grandmaster wiggles something in front of his face. Loki opens his eyes to see a bottle of lube. “Ah,” he says, not sure whether he feels eager or terrified.

“That’s right! Let’s get you into position, hmm?” says the Grandmaster. He jumps off the bed and tugs on Loki’s hips until he’s arranged Loki with his feet on the floor, bent over the mattress. The movement jostles Loki’s arms and he yelps before he can help himself as the pain shoots through him. It’s clearly not a sound of pleasure, but the Grandmaster says nothing, just spreads Loki’s legs until his feet barely reach the ground.

“See what I mean?” says the Grandmaster, gripping Loki’s rock-hard cock, all too quickly exposed after all. “This is just your ideal situation, isn’t it?” He jerks Loki off for a minute, and Loki struggles to move into the sensation without jostling his arms.

“To be perfectly honest, this isn’t quite what I usually prefer,” ventures Loki. Perhaps this is a moment where he can steer things a little? Although in which direction, he isn’t sure.

The Grandmaster laughs. “Nonsense! You’re so funny! You’re just the, the whole package!” He releases Loki’s cock, patting his balls gently and then less so, and then he picks up the bottle of lube and sets to work opening Loki up.

The Grandmaster gives a kind of satisfied hum when he finally enters Loki, and Loki tenses his already-tense arms, trying to maneuver his hands out of the way of the Grandmaster’s body as he presses further inside. The Grandmaster stills, cock buried in Loki’s ass, and runs his finger over the ribbon lacing connecting Loki’s arms. Loki feels himself clench up in response, and then realizes by the Grandmaster’s pleased sigh that that may have been the point.

Then the Grandmaster begins fucking him, fingers digging into his hips—and maybe if he keeps doing that often enough, Loki will indeed find bruises etched in there, reapplied like makeup every time they begin to fade. Every thrust jostles his pierced and bound arms, and Loki moves back to meet the Grandmaster’s motions, and forward to rub his cock as best he can against the side of the mattress.

“That’s what I’m talking about! Look at you, I’m barely doing any work here. Full service, my favourite kind,” says the Grandmaster, and Loki should hate it, _does_ hate it, but also—doesn’t. Maybe the Grandmaster is right, says that small voice inside of Loki, maybe this is exactly where he belongs, what he does best.

Loki grits his teeth and fucks himself harder against the Grandmaster’s cock, chasing the temporary mental oblivion of hard, unrelenting use.

Too soon, the Grandmaster comes with a groan, sending Loki over after him with a few perfunctory jerks to Loki’s aching cock. He pulls out, and Loki feels the swarming cloud of his thoughts descend again. He shouldn’t be enjoying this, but at the same time he shouldn’t mind it; he should be able to instrumentalize his body without feeling so dirty-lost afterwards, but then why can’t his body remain a mere instrument, played at a distance?

The Grandmaster unties the ribbon—what felt like a complicated knot to Loki turns out to be a simple bow, unravelled with a slight tug—and undoes the lacing needle by needle until Loki’s arms are free. He lets them drops to his side, exhausted, almost hoping to earn some kind of rebuke, but the Grandmaster simply lays down a cloth on the bed and drops the ribbon on top of it. Red has soaked into the blue of the ribbon in places, and Loki feels a strange gratitude for the confirmation of whatever it is that has just happened to him.

The Grandmaster begins to pull the needles out of him, dropping them one by one beside the ribbon. The sensation of them sliding back the way they came through his flesh makes the now-familiar restlessness return.

Loki considers each needle as it falls onto the cloth. He thinks about small things and their effects.

* * *

Loki decides he likes it, knowing that any affection the Grandmaster feels for him is the kind one might feel for a pet or a toy or a valuable artifact. He has been all those things without knowing it, after all, and this time he is aware from the get-go, which will surely make it different. And the Grandmaster does feel some kind of affection for him, Loki can tell, because he coos over him, sickly-sweet, gentle until he isn’t and then rough in the manner of an artist, and he is not the kind of being to bother pretending something like that.

So Loki decides he likes it. Or, more accurately, he decides _to_ like it, which is almost the same thing.

He is encouraged, too, by his haul of secrets. By the end of his first week in the Grandmaster’s company, he has keycodes to most areas of the palace tower, a laundry list of past attempts on the Grandmaster’s life and why they failed, and juicy anecdotes with which to blackmail half the Grandmaster’s inner circle.

Surely that proves this is all worth it.

* * *

“I’ve got one of my...special parties tonight,” says the Grandmaster, stroking Loki’s hair. Loki is no longer sure how many days it has been since he arrived on this planet; it feels like forever and no time at all.

“An orgy,” says Loki, because the Grandmaster, he has learned, likes him bold.

Sure enough, the Grandmaster laughs as though Loki has told a joke. “That’s exactly right. And I have a bit of a tradition, actually. The first time someone comes to one of my orgies. Just wanted to give you a heads up about that.”

“Tell me more,” says Loki, layering intrigue over fear.

“Oh, can’t do that, I’m afraid,” says the Grandmaster.

“Why not?”

“Well, because I don’t want to. I think it’s nice to have a surprise sometimes, don’t you?”

 _Then why did you bring it up_ , thinks Loki, but of course he knows that. It’s the kind of thing Loki would do himself.

He shifts closer to the Grandmaster on the bed, turns his head to whisper in his ear. One time one of the Grandmaster’s previous pets tried to kill the Grandmaster in this exact position, her tongue laving his earlobe as she pressed a knife into his back. No one Loki has spoken with so far knows what happened to her after that, just that she hasn’t been seen since. This, obviously, will not be Loki’s strategy. “How about a hint?”

“Hmm, well, think of it as a game, sort of.” The Grandmaster shifts his head back and forth, a kind of _maybe_ gesture. “There are points involved, anyway. I don’t do this for just anyone, but you’re someone special so I wanted to give you a full welcome.”

“I thought you said you did this to everyone when they came to one of these parties of yours for the first time.” Now the word _orgy_ sticks in Loki’s throat.

“I did, didn’t I? Well, mmm, let’s say I do it when I feel like it. And I feel like it with you, Loki, you just...you put me in a very good mood.”

The uncertainty makes Loki want to bolt. But where would he go? And besides, it’s just his body. He can survive an evening of pleasure, however strange or overwhelming.

Still, when the Grandmaster comes to fetch him—personally, Loki thinks with pride before he can help himself—with a blindfold and some kind of thin loop of chain in his hand, Loki finds it harder than usual to maintain his smile.

The Grandmaster slips the chain around Loki’s neck. From it hangs a thin, stick-like blue pendant. He brushes sparkly gold powder along Loki’s cheekbones and bright red on Loki’s lips, and again, Loki shivers at the personal attention, even though he knows the Grandmaster must mean him to, must be engineering this intimacy.

The Grandmaster leaves his eyes free of pastes or powders of any kind, which Loki suspects means he will be wearing the blindfold all night.

Sure enough, once the Grandmaster has taken him to the main deck of his pleasure cruiser, he allows Loki one long glance—the fountains of booze and the caged dancers and the guests already in various states of undress—and then slips the blindfold over his eyes, securing it tightly. He pats Loki’s head, and Loki flinches before he can help himself, unable to anticipate the gesture.

What would the Grandmaster do if Loki yanked the blindfold off? No, no, he’s invested too much in this to back out now. If he has to, he will pack his mind away somewhere, floating ethereal, and let his body be battered by the night’s revelry like a ship in a storm without its captain.

Loki breathes. The air is full of sweat perfume, beating back the stink of the planet.

The Grandmaster tugs at the collar of Loki’s robe. “So many layers! I should have had you take this off earlier. Guess you’ll just have to do that now.”

Loki could vanish his clothes with the snap of his fingers, but he has kept that power from his host for this long. Instead, he slips out of them the mundane way, feeling with blinded fingers for the fastenings, stripping himself of everything but the blindfold and the strange necklace.

The Grandmaster pulls Loki towards him, guiding him down to his knees. He runs his hands through Loki’s hair, playing with the strands.

“Is this part of the game?” asks Loki.

The Grandmaster laughs affectionately. “It sure is!” His hand leaves Loki’s hair, and Loki can hear a rustle of fabric as the Grandmaster undoes his pants.

“If we’ve already started playing, isn’t it time I learned the rules?” Loki tries.

“Oh, don’t you worry, sweet thing,” says the Grandmaster. “Everyone else knows what’s happening, and you—you really just have to play along.”

“Still—” says Loki, but the Grandmaster presses his cock against Loki’s mouth, cutting him off.

Loki parts his lips and begins warming the Grandmaster up with his tongue. Perhaps the blindfold won’t be such a problem after all—it makes it easy to focus on the Grandmaster amidst the bustle of his party, and it’s not as though this act isn’t something Loki has already accumulated a fair bit of experience with. Loki relaxes, pressing forward to take the Grandmaster deeper into his mouth.

“Skaxa! So glad you could make it!” says the Grandmaster, at the same time as he winds Loki’s hair into his fist and pulls Loki even further forward. The Grandmaster’s cock hits the back of Loki’s throat and Loki can’t help from gagging; it’s all so quick and unexpected. The Grandmaster, however, holds Loki’s head in place until Loki gets control of his spasming throat, only then letting him back for a quick breath before pulling Loki’s mouth onto his cock once again. All the while, the Grandmaster continues his conversation with Skaxa, swapping pleasantries as though he isn’t receiving a blow job at the same time.

Loki’s cheeks burn. All around him he can hear the sounds of conversation, each distinct voice another set of eyes that can see him like this, kneeling on the ground, being fucked in the face. The Grandmaster maneuvers Loki’s head forward and back, bruising his throat with his cock as he discusses the various spirits Skaxa brews in her distillery, and which ones are on offer tonight, and whether Skaxa is still together with that Xandarian, and where she got her absolutely gorgeous dress. Saliva and pre-cum drip down Loki’s chin and onto his bare chest.

“Just a minute,” says the Grandmaster to Skaxa, and then he speeds up his motions, thrusting into Loki’s mouth now, faster and faster, until Loki feels him come, bitter salt on his tongue. “That’s the ticket,” the Grandmaster says as he pulls back, releasing his grip on Loki’s hair to pat Loki’s head.

Loki swallows.

“Who is this, by the way?” asks Skaxa. “I don’t think I’ve seen him at one of these events before.”

“No you sure haven’t!” says the Grandmaster. “He’s new, my latest find—absolutely gorgeous, right? His first big party, and you know what that means!”

“Want me to do the honours?” says Skaxa.

“Absolutely not!” says the Grandmaster. “But only because I think you should have a turn with him yourself later. Loki, sweetheart, get up, won’t you?”

Loki rises to his feet, hoping the movement is reasonably graceful despite—everything. He smiles, doing his best to face the direction of the Grandmaster’s voice.

The Grandmaster fingers the pendant hanging from Loki’s neck, then removes part of it with a tug. Loki feels the comparative lightness of the chain against the back of his neck. He runs the detached piece of the necklace down Loki’s skin, a small vertical motion near the left side of his upper chest. Loki can’t see it, but he assumes the Grandmaster has left a mark.

The Grandmaster re-attaches the thing in his hand to the rest of Loki’s necklace. “There we go,” says the Grandmaster. “Now have fun, OK? I’ll check in on you later.”

And with that, the Grandmaster spins Loki around and pushes him away so that he stumbles forward, falling into a strange set of arms.

Loki catches on to the game soon enough.

One after another—or sometimes more than one at a time—people grab him, claim him, and one after another he gets them off. And every time he does, hands detach the dangling pendant hanging from Loki’s neck, and make another mark on his chest. A tally, he soon realizes, of how many people have been brought to orgasm with his body.

The worst part is that Loki isn’t sure if he’s meant to be humiliated or not. Some of his partners clearly think so, laughing at how easily he takes their cocks, or sitting on his face with barely a thought to his need to breathe. But others are sweet, gentle, considerate, acting for all the world like lovers, tongueing eagerly at his swollen asshole and gently brushing his hair back from his face. It makes it more difficult to make sense of the endless stream of bodies pressed against and inside him—hands and mouths and sexual organs that might be rough or gentle, nasty or sweet.

He tries to hold off his own orgasm, well aware that the onslaught is likely to continue without pause after he comes, but eventually he feels a hot wet mouth around him, working him steadily, and he cannot help but spill into it, overcome. The owner of the mouth slips off him, but the person pounding his ass with a trio of slightly slimy appendages continues without pause, just as Loki had assumed, pulling his hair as they continue to fuck him. And when they finish (and that’s another tally mark), someone else takes their place, impossibly thick, and then someone is pulling his head forward onto cunt lips patterned with strange raised markings, and his own cock is twitching once again at the press of that firm thickness against his prostate, and—blessedly—Loki feels beyond coherent thought, nothing to do but be his body, just his body, only that.

When it’s all over, the Grandmaster finds Loki where he’s lying, exhausted, half on a couch and half off of it. He hauls Loki up, sharp press of fingers under his elbows, and then rips the blindfold off without warning, leaving Loki blinking in the sudden light.

Immediately, Loki lowers his gaze from the Grandmaster’s smiling face to his own chest, the multiple rows of blue slashes decorating his flesh, counting once, then again: forty-three.

The Grandmaster trails his fingers over the tick marks, the blue of what Loki can now see is a makeup crayon matched exactly to the Grandmaster’s fingernails. Loki is conscious of all the things he is covered with and all the things he is not—the various sexual fluids coating his body, the messy lines marching across his chest to quantify his debasement, and then his utter lack of any scrap of clothing to make the sensation complete. The haze of orgasm is faded completely, and Loki can’t tell if he wishes he had enjoyed himself more or less. Everything feels like too much or not enough, the Grandmaster’s fingers hot and cold all at once. It’s shameful, what he’s doing here, and making it more shameful is the fact that he’s gotten off on it, his cock as much a traitor as the rest of him.

The Grandmaster licks his lips. “You know what I love about you, Loki?” he says.

Wearily, Loki shakes his head, smile strained, movement reluctant.

The Grandmaster beams down at him. “You’re always up for anything. You know? Sure, sometimes you’ve got a little attitude, but that can be fun too, and when it really comes down to it—you just never say no! That’ll get you far here.”

 _As though saying no is a real choice._ But the words still seep into Loki’s skin, one final shame to coat him in as he forces himself, or allows himself, or maybe both, to relax into the Grandmaster’s arms.

* * *

Loki buys a map of Sakaar from a scrapper at one of the city’s many open-air markets, haggling the way he sees others do. It’s holographic and three-dimensional, a projection contained in an ostentatious ring, and he quickly gets the hang of the mechanics of the thing, zooming in and out with his fingers. He turns the miniaturized planet this way and that, and wonders about the practicalities of the Grandmaster’s rule.

As far as he can tell, the Grandmaster leaves almost everything about his world to others’ devices, preferring to lounge around in his robes, or, often, out of them. It should be a weakness, but all it makes Loki think of is a mountain, a sheer cliff face with one single, treacherous route to the summit. What other angle is there, what other toehold but his body?

And Loki is tired, and sore, and as alone as he ever has been.

He walks back to the Grandmaster’s palace. He cannot afford a longer absence than this.

* * *

The collar—and it is unmistakably a collar, thick blue and green leather with a gold o-ring hanging from the front—dangles from the Grandmaster’s gesticulating hand like a flag.

The piercings, the tally-marks at the orgy, and now this. Loki thinks of the Grandmaster’s words as he examined the blemish-free skin of Loki’s neck, _I’ve got a few ideas already_ : the problem of showcasing possession solved again and again.

Loki once again considers the word _no_ , rolls it around in his mouth then swallows it back down.

“I didn’t realize—” he starts, unsure where this is going, and is almost grateful when the Grandmaster interrupts.

“You might be wondering how I got the exact, uh, measurements of your neck,” he says. This is not what Loki has been wondering, but now that he thinks about it—no, he truly doesn’t want to know. The Grandmaster laughs, broad and self-indulgent. “I just have that good of an eye, if you can believe it. What am I saying? Of course you believe it, right?”

Loki inclines his head. “Of course.” He feels sickly-hot with that now-familiar cocktail of trepidation and arousal, thoughts racing double-time through his head. He thinks he understands why everyone on this awful planet drinks so much.

“So? Let’s try it out, right? Give it a little test drive, just—take this thing we’ve got going on between us to the next level! What do you say?”

Loki hears his own voice as if from far away. “How could I deny you?”

The Grandmaster pats Loki on the back of his neck with the hand still holding the collar. Loki feels the o-ring against his skin, a shock of cold metal.

“That’s the spirit,” says the Grandmaster, and walks around behind Loki. He taps the back of Loki’s head with two fingers, and Loki bends his head forward. The Grandmaster pushes Loki’s hair to one side with soft fingers, and then slips the collar around Loki’s neck. He fastens it with some kind of click, and Loki’s heart plummets to the floor.

The Grandmaster moves back around to face Loki, his grin broadening as he looks Loki up and down. He reaches out to hook a finger into the o-ring, now sitting snugly against the front of Loki’s throat. Loki swallows, and feels the collar tight against his Adam’s apple. The Grandmaster pulls him in for a kiss, and Loki thinks about limits and gag reflexes and opening moves, and wonders if there were different ways this whole thing could have gone.

The Grandmaster pulls back, admiring Loki like a work of art. Loki commissioned works of art, once, sculptures and dramas and large, finely woven tapestries to hang above his bed. He has the urge to laugh, mad and dangerous laughter.

“You’re so very tempting right now,” says the Grandmaster. “That mouth and, mmm, that throat. But we can’t very well miss this party when I threw it just to show you off!” Loki’s shock must register on his face because the Grandmaster winks at him. “Well, mostly to show me off. But you were a consideration, you were pretty, pretty up there. On the list.”

“I’m honoured,” says Loki, and the worst thing is, a part of him is.

“You should be,” says the Grandmaster. Then he presses his finger to his chin. “Oh, no, I truly can’t help myself. Just a quickie, hmm? And then we’ll head right there.”

And with that, the Grandmaster hooks his finger through the ring of Loki’s collar once again and uses it to guide Loki down to the floor.

* * *

“Loki,” the Grandmaster calls, beckoning with an offhand gesture. Loki weaves his way through the mingling crowd until he’s at the Grandmaster’s side. The Grandmaster pulls him closer still, putting his hand around his waist and then moving it slowly downwards until it is unmistakably resting on Loki’s ass.

(It’s just his body).

Standing in front of the Grandmaster is a woman almost a foot shorter than Loki, skin bright green—and she’s showing a lot of skin—and eyes wide. “Loki, have you met Veena yet? She was at my last party, so she may have met you—you did, huh? Yeah, he’s great, isn’t he?” The Grandmaster beams at Veena, and she smiles back. “Well. Loki, this is Veena, she’s lovely, a real life-of-the-party type if you know what I mean.”

Loki inclines his head. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Veena,” says the Grandmaster, toying with Loki’s collar, “I think Loki might like to see your new look.”

“Of course,” says the woman, and she opens her mouth to reveal a tongue sliced neatly down the middle, faint scar tissue visible between the two halves. She wiggles it at Loki, smile all teeth.

“Veena here knew how much I missed having someone with a forked tongue around ever since we had to say goodbye to that lizard guy, what’s his name—not that you’d know it, I guess—so she agreed to get one herself, just for me!” says the Grandmaster. Loki is mesmerized by that tongue, can’t bring himself to look away, or to stop imagining the knife. “Honestly, I’m blown away sometimes by some of the things people do for me, it’s just—just so touching. Would you like a demonstration?”

Loki is about to ask _of what_ when the Grandmaster turns back to Veena. “Let’s show our new guest some, mmm, hospitality, yes?”

The woman nods and kneels, her smile never wavering. Loki can’t tell what lies behind that smile—whether she is scared, resentful; or whether she is honoured, eager; or whether she is like him, calculating, determined to be a rising star. Loki looks around. No one else seems to be dropping to their knees or otherwise engaged in foreplay of any overt kind. Unlike a few nights ago, this is not an orgy. It’s just what the Grandmaster said it was—a party to show himself off. And possibly to show Loki off, as well, Loki and his collar.

“I rather—that is—” Loki is not quite sure what to say. It’s a colossally stupid thing to risk saying no to, a gorgeous women getting on her knees and sucking him off, especially considering all the other things he hasn’t refused while he’s been in the Grandmaster’s company. Loki grits his teeth. It’s inconvenient, the continued presence of his boundaries. It’s just his body, his body, his _body_ , nothing that can _really_ hurt him, nothing he can’t handle, so where is this bone-deep terror coming from all of a sudden?

The Grandmaster laughs indulgently and moves to stand behind Loki, reaching around to undo the lacing on his trousers. “Worried what people will think? Come on, sweet thing! You know what they say—we’re here for a good time, not a long time. Well, I’m here for both, but you know.”

There are people glancing over now. The woman licks her lip with her artificially forked tongue. Loki wonders how it happened, recalls that early unsettling conversation with the Grandmaster— _is there any way you could turn your whole fast-healing thing off?_ Did Veena experience something similar? _You know I was thinking, your tongue, have you ever considered…_

Is this where all the Grandmaster’s hangers-on, all his favourites, his pets, end up eventually, molding themselves completely to his whims?

“That’s...a good point,” says Loki as Veena takes his still-soft cock into her mouth, the two halves of her tongue licking twin lines along either side as he begins to grow hard despite his misgivings.

“It is, isn’t it?” says the Grandmaster, one hand holding the back of Loki’s neck: a second collar on top of the first. “You’ll have to find a way to thank me later.”

Loki closes his eyes, and thinks with sudden clarity—he has to get off this planet.

**Author's Note:**

> hey wanna [follow me on tumblr](http://www.aliceinthinkland.tumblr.com)? some people do, which never ceases to amaze and delight me.


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